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The good news is that the prognosis from my doctors is excellent, the cancer was caught quickly, and my condition is curable. Following thorough tests that included a CAT scan, PET scan and a biopsy, the cancer is confined to the original site and the adjacent lymph nodes on the right side of my neck. Importantly, there is no evidence of cancer elsewhere in my body.

It’s impossible to speculate on Dimon’s cancer beyond what he put in his memo. I contacted JPMorgan and the company could not confirm any other details about his conditions. But it’s very possible that Dimon has been swept up, along with thousands of other men, by an increasingly common disease: throat cancer caused by infection with the human papilloma virus, or HPV.

“It wouldn’t be unusual,” says Eric Genden, chief of head and neck oncology at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. “This is an epidemic.”

In 2008, the last year for which data are available, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention estimate that 2,370 women and 9,356 men developed HPV-caused head and neck cancer, about a third of the cases of head and neck cancer that year.

But Genden says that 70% to 90% of head and neck cancer cases worldwide are now caused by HPV; the American Cancer SocietyAmerican Cancer Society estimates that this year, there will be 42,440 cases of head and neck cancer in the U.S.

Traditionally, head and neck cancer patients were older men who smoke and drank heavily. The alcohol and tobacco damaged the cells in the throat, eventually leading to cancer.

HPV-caused cancer is different. The men (and it’s still mostly men) who get it are younger. In a series of cases at Mount Sinai, they were between 35 and 65.

The point is that these are men much like Dimon: CEOs and consultants, men at the peak of their lives and professional power. And their numbers are increasing.

The chart above shows the total number of throat cancer cases, and also the amount caused by HPV and the amount that weren’t, among patients in Hawaii, Iowa, and Los Angeles. As you can see, in 2004 the HPV cancers began to outnumber the type caused by smoking and drinking.

How do you get HPV cancer? HPV is sexually transmitted. It’s mainly known as a cause of cervical cancer, which is what happens when it infects women. But men can get it by performing cunnilingus. It’s also possible, though less likely, that it can be transmitted by kissing. Eighty percent of sexually active people between the ages of 14 and 44 have had oral sex with an opposite sex partner. Researchers estimate that HPV throat cancer in men will be more common than cervical cancer in women in the U.S.

Most strains of HPV do not cause cancer, either in the throat or the cervix. And most HPV infections are cleared by the body. But in a minority of cases, perhaps 10%, they persist. If the strain is of the right variety – for instance, the HPV 16 strain of the virus – this infection can eventually lead to cancer. When it comes to throat cancer, this process takes decades.

The good news is that throat cancer caused by HPV is far less deadly than the old type that resulted from chronic tobacco use and drinking. Some researchers have cited data that it is 80% curable. In a series of 500 patients who were early in their disease conducting at Sinai, more than 90% were still cancer free five years after surgery. And in that study Sinai was deliberately using less invasive surgery and skipping chemotherapy and radiation in the interest of sparing men side effects.

One hope is that the vaccines developed to prevent HPV infection in women – Gardasil, from MerckMerck, and Cervarix, from GlaxoSmithKlineGlaxoSmithKline – could prevent HPV infection in the throat and, therefore, cancer later on. But there’s no way to prove this. Drug companies funded studies showing the vaccines prevented the formation of precancerous lesions in the cervix, but there’s no way to do something similar in the throat.

“I think the downside of having the HPV vaccine in young boys is so low and the potential upside is so high that I advocate it,” says Genden. “Do we have evidence that it prevents oropharangeal cancer in boys? No.”

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I don’t think it is right to print an article thinly veiled in the guise of ‘cancer-awareness’ but is in essence an announcement to the world of an unethical man’s cancer, little more than a sympathy grab.

“But what we do know is that this virus is likely to give cancer to a lot of men who look a lot like him in the years to come.” So, all you fake-tanned, scrupulously quaffed white men should be on the lookout?? What is that supposed to mean? C’mon Matt, you can do better.

Matthew it is NOT riht for aime Diamond and the rest of the banking filth to delight in the Wall Street con game they pulled on the american citizens that resulted in 100 Trillion walking away from teh american economy and the absolute destruction it has wrought on everyone. Have you somehow forgotten this already? Do you not care about the US citizen that has been rendered financially ruined? Why feel sory for the riminal and not the victim? To me his throat cancer should have been STAGE FOUR and terminal. He could then dwell on the thought of WHAT PROFIT A MAN TO GAIN THE WORLD (money) AND LOSE HIS SOUL (life) IN THE PROCESS…..

Mr. Demon is greatly contributing to the downfall of America with the third world wealth divide he and his cohorts are doing with the Fed’s aid. We have an outrageously overpriced stock market per our real GDP growth of about negative 10%. You see, the real GDP growth rate needs to have from the nominal GDP growth rate, a subtraction due to the actual inflation rate, something government is not doing, PLUS also the percent of the GDP due to deficit spending. It just so happens the deficit spending has been decreasing which is exposing the real GDP growth to show the -2.9% inflated number. Go look up the article “Negative 10% GDP growth unmasked” as no one in the mainstream media is willing to show this to the public. It’s all been market pumping propaganda.

Now just what is Mr. Demon doing contributing to society? He’s a parasite. Go read the book “Thoughtful Living” to understand most of the wealthy are the true parasites, not so much the poor. What they make either through ridiculously high salaries or from commercial and residential real estate is off the backs of those less fortunate, those who mostly have to do work for a living while they sit back in a resort going through a bunch of prostitutes or dumb idolizing women and the money keeps rolling in with merely a phone call once in a while to whomever manages their properties. That’s taking, not giving.

Now how about giving us some bank interest? Cut all the executive compensation to $20K per year for the easy “work” of basically doing nothing – bank tellers do work, these “special” persons do not. Cut the stock dividend and give money to those who really deserve it.

Seriously Mathew – you are making money of his throat cancer ! Why not figure out who he got the viruse from; wife or other. Or is that too much to ask of a reporter these days especially a PC liberal !

I find it “unsettling” that within 24 hours of Mr. Dimon informing his employees of his diagnosis, you print an article informing the world, without having spoken to him or received permission, a la HIPPA, to declare, allege, imply, infer, that his throat cancer is caused by HPV.

A timely article on the incidence of HPV related throat cancer would have been educational and informative but using Mr. Dimon’s new diagnosis without his permission to self disclose the nature of the specific diagnosis, which you have assumed, is irresponsible and a violation of his privacy to his health information.

You are correct on one point. Even YOU can be diagnosed with HPV throat cancer and I would hope you are as forthcoming with your own diagnosis as you are with your presumptive diagnosis of others’.

As an RN, retired, I am new to this site and might be interested in some of the articles listed under your name. However, for me, you have discredited yourself on the most important of medicine and healthcare, and that is the privacy of an individual.

Mr. Dimon may be a public person but his health state is the public’s right to know only to the extent he chooses to disclose it, and, unless I missed something in your article, I did not read that he has said anything other than to confirm he has been diagnosed with throat cancer and will be undergoing treatment and the prognosis is good.

I do not know exactly when Journalism lost all of their propriety and decided that they had no boundaries whatsoever.

I said, twice, that I don’t know whether his tumor is HPV+. At the same time, the number of cases of throat cancer in men is going up because of HPV, and, by some doctor’s estimates, the large majority of nasopharyngeal cancers in men are caused by HPV. I don’t think there was anything wrong with pointing out those trends at a moment when people were interested to hear about them.

Nana4g……..Your post is exactly right. How dare the author of this article imply that the tumor was HPV related when he has no factual knowledge to base that implication on. Journalistic ethics are in the gutter.

“I don’t think there was anything wrong with pointing out those trends at a moment when people were interested to hear about them.”

Whether you stated you didn’t know the actual cause is beside the point. You used Jamie Dimon’s prominence as the CEO of JP Morgan in order to attract attention to an article that is primarily about HPV, which may not be relevant at all to Dimon’s specific case. What would your take be if you had throat cancer, made it a point to not disclose the specific cause, and then someone used your case to share an article with the world about how it’s “very possible” you got it because of oral sex?

Well it is. Otherwise it’s likely smoking and drinking. Incidence of throat cancer is going up, and this is why; if we take out the decrease in the number of cases caused by other causes (mostly very heavy smoking and drinking) then we see that the number of cases caused by HPV is literally skyrocketing. If someone asks me about head and neck cancer, that is one of the first things I think they should know. No, I don’t think this story would bother me were I one of the most recognizable CEOs on the planet.

It was arrogant for you to think that you had the right to contact JP Morgan to get private medical information on Dimon when it is none of your business, ethically or legally. You all but shouted from the page that Dimon’s tumor was “maybe” the result of the HPV virus and entwined him into your storyline as the representative example of one who would get this kind of tumor and why when you have no factual knowledge of Dimon’s medical history to be able to connect Dimon to this virus. You could have written an article about HPV without using him as your inference.. Your journalistic ethics are in the gutter.

With years of working in the health insurance industry and hospitals, no doctor has ever said HPV is the cause of cancer (throat or otherwise) in men or women. Your article speaks with arrogance of “don’t tell me I know what I am talking about” in that regard. You show no evidence of your claim or mention any facts. Nana4g is correct in calling you out on your claim and mentioning it is not your right/responsibility to shout out a diagnosis of a person/patient. The public knew nothing of Jaime’s health and certainly have no rights to information like this….which is intimate/private/protected/and of no one’s business. Would you like it if someone shouted out that you had AIDS? And then went on to post it in the news media? Think about that….

Also this article screams of the desire of pharmaceutical companies desire to inoculate boys/men with this VERY DANGEROUS HPV VACCINE. Many young girls who took the vaccine out of fear, ended up dead or with extreme side effects, uncontrollable bleeding, all manner of infections etc. Why did you not take the opportunity to inform the masses of the dangers of the HPV vaccine, so they are not misled into believing that taking that vaccine may have kept Jaime along with all men/boys from contracting the throat cancers you claim are the end result of this virus??

It’s hard to take this post seriously, it has so many errors. HPV has been known for 20 yrs to cause throat cancer–check the medical journals. Now using biopsies and powerful microscopes its easy to confirm via tissue samples what caused it–HPV or smoking/ drinking. Your comments about the vaccine are worse. You will not find a single credible (ie not written by a quack or a wannabe actress) article saying the vaccines are dangerous, let alone that they caused bleeding or killed anyone. What kills people, especially kids, its not getting vaccines because idiots spread the long-discounted rumors that vaccines cause bizarre side effects.

You should have written an article that did not reference Mr. Dimon’s diagnosis, then. You should have written an article about throat cancer and the relation to HPV+ and you could have used as examples, if you felt compelled to do so, the names of high profile people who have self disclosed to the public.

If you had to say, twice, that you didn’t know whether Dimon’s tumor is HPV+, you should not have assumed, implied, inferred, or otherwise, used the “opportunity” of his diagnosis, to sum it up with saying men who look like him will have the same diagnosis of throat cancer caused by HPV+ in years to come.

Really? You can tell by looking what sort of man will be diagnosed with HPV+ throat cancer because, because why?

I may not have any more admiration and affection for the man than any of the rest of the people responding to his diagnosis. But I am a professional nurse and I do not judge people who are diagnosed with cancer, the great Equalizer of us all. He is a person with a serious health issue and, whether he is the worst criminal in the land, a greedy banker, or a saint, they each and all deserve to tell their story or not to tell their story, themselves. No journalist has the right to speculate and drop little narratives about a public person’s health/diagnosis, although you have all gotten into the bad habit of setting up false narratives on other issues and sitting back watching the story fly around the country with new angles right and left, up and down, until a person’s reputation is ruined.

His health status is not a matter of crucial importance to the nation that any of us have a right to know. He is CEO of the largest bank in the country and I suspect JP Morgan Chase Bank will do just fine while he seeks treatment.

No, there is nothing wrong with providing the general public with information about the increasing incidence of throat cancers and the etiology of them. But there is something very wrong with using this man’s name and his diagnosis in the same article. If you don’t know whether his tumor is HPV+, you should not have included him in this article, UNLESS, you had contacted him and been given a statement that confirmed it, and could quote him.

It is not a matter of Journalism to speculate and gossip, or, at least, if should not be, unless you are a gossip columnist and not an editor on medicine and science. You have no idea, really, what the “probablilities” of this particular case are for HPV+ throat cancer. Once you put an assumption or a “probability” out in the press/media, you have created your own narrative and planted conclusions in the minds of the consumers of media, that never really go away. It simply is not your business or any one else’s business to publish a person’s health status or diagnosis based on assumptions, and, even if you had found out for certain, from a source other than Dimon or his designated and authorized representative, you are not justified in printing it. Forbes is not the coffee room at work or the privacy of your home. It is all over everywhere. It was irresponsible and disrespectful of you and your attempts to justify sound very immature.

Now, I’m going to be blunt, Matthew. You are obviously not well versed in medical journalism as it relates to people and their health issues, specifically. You know incidence, statistics, etiology, et al, that can be found in medical journals and medical journalism. When those specialty journalists write about cases, they NEVER identify the individual by name. Unless you learn the ethcis of medicine, stay away from writing about individual people and their health information. Do not presume everyone in every circumstance would feel as you do and that is the basis with which you approach their HIPPA provided privacy, because that is not medical or science journalism; that is subjective and it is gossip.

I though Forbes was about economics, commerce, finance, not a gossip rag.

The proper anatomical site where this is taking place in the oropharnyx, not the nasopharynx. Nasopharyngeal cancers are primarily associated with Epstien-Barr Virus, oropharyngeal with HPV16. Drawing conclusions of an HPV etiology when the vast majority of OPSCC cancers are HPV 16, and the man was a non smoker (the other most likely cause) for decades is logical extrapolation of the idea. OPSCC is also the one that most rapidly metastasizes to the cervical lymph nodes, which he clearly remarked on in his statement he has an involvement of. So based on evidence that was out there, and without need to address any HIPPA issues, conclusions can be drawn. JD put the information out there and if you are familiar with the signs and symptoms you can draw conclusions. Obviously without finding the oncoproteins (E6-E7) that HPV16 expresses in the DNA of a cell from his biopsy sample there is no definitive conclusion.

Since 1984 the incidence of tobacco caused oropharyngeal cancers has declined by 50%. During that same timeframe the incidence of HPV16 caused oropharyngeal cancers has increased by 225%. Since HPV infections are the most common sexually transferred infection, there is no “stigma” associated with having one. If you are sexually active you are going to have this virus cross your path. The vast majority of individuals will become infected, their immune system will clear it, and they will never know the entire process took place, as it produces no symptoms that anyone will be aware of. The CDC estimates that more than 80% of all American will have the infection in their lifetime.

I would think that, as a nurse, you would know that HIPPA Laws only apply to medical personnel—-not to journalists. The author also stated that he did not have any personal knowledge as to the “cause” of Dimon’s throat cancer, he was just speculating that it well likely could have been caused by HPV Infection, and talking about Dimon’s case, hypothetically. He has broken no privacy laws.

Matthew, PLEASE !!! Your headline says … “Why Thousands Of Men Like Jamie Dimon Are Getting Throat Cancer”, and then the article is about HPV. You have linked the two together, WITH YOUR HEADLINE, even with your two disclaimer-type statements. NO ONE is buying it!

I agree with a good portion of this rant. If Mr. Dimon had chosen to go to the press that would’ve been one thing, but his personal info was obviously “leaked” out, and it’s not like some scandal or anything, it’s a horrible disease that I watched my father die from (he had help from Agent Orange however, so his death sentence was written in stone).